Early last year, New York City Council passed a resolution officially recognizing January 31st as Cecilia Gentili Day. As an electric artist and movement mother, Cecilia left an outsized impact on our city and the most marginalized communities within it. For our inaugural newsletter, we wanted to focus on her not just as an icon, but as a person embedded in a community that misses her dearly. If you’d like to hear more about our work as we fight to continue Cecilia’s legacy, you can subscribe to this newsletter.
The following memorial was written by Kathleen, a Decrim NY member that organized alongside her.
I came to know Cecilia through Decrim NY. The first time I met her face-to-face was in her home, with a dozen other Decrim members. After the first year of official advocacy, Cecilia welcomed us into her home and we settled onto the sectional couch in her living room or nestled into the area rug around a large coffee table. As the other organizers–most in their 20s and 30s–chatted or rifled through bins of markers or affixed chart paper to the wall to get ready for the day, Cecilia made an announcement. As I remember, she said “I am done with being an advocate. I am too old. I am too tired. I’m not going to do the work anymore. I am going to be the movement mom.” Cecilia left us to work in her living room, turning to her kitchen where she cooked the group breakfast, then lunch, and–by the end of the day–she emerged with a chocolate layer cake. She channeled her energy into creating a warm, welcoming, open space where a gaggle of queer, trans, and sex worker advocates could create and envision together.
Cecilia’s retirement was short lived–she was a true activist and fought for her community until her death. She said she was done, but she wasn’t. She maintained a critical role in social movement organizing for trans, immigrant, and sex working New Yorkers. Cecilia’s accomplishments as an advocate are numerous. She was a leader in the movement to pass GENDA, which created protection against discrimination for trans folks in NY. She opened her own advocacy firm, Trans Equity Consulting, where she was able to set her own legislative agenda and, just as importantly, employ other trans people and sex workers in advocating for the community. She co-founded Decrim NY, which won legislative success, first with the repeal of loitering for the purpose of prostitution–also called the “walking while trans ban”–that engendered police harassment, surveillance, and arrest of trans women in public spaces. Then the START Act, a bill that allowed survivors of trafficking to have their criminal records cleared of any charges compelled by their trafficker.
Cecilia leveraged her story to change the hearts and minds of legislators who were often too embarrassed or ashamed to discuss issues of sex, sexuality, or gender identity. When people tried to diminish her experience or her agency or her voice, Cecilia demanded to be recognized. In advocacy, we are constantly searching for the perfect story — the sympathetic “face case” for impact litigation or legislative framing. Cecilia was not perfect, and she never pretended to be. She was also not ashamed. She demanded to be seen, taken seriously, and respected. Cecilia demanded that legislators see her, and her community, and that they invest. And they did. In 2021, Cecilia went to the New York City Council alongside Callen-Lorde Community Health Center–the city’s largest LGBTQ+ healthcare center–to ask for money. Later that year, with the funding secured, Callen-Lorde launched Cecilia’s Occupational Inclusion Network (COIN), a free health clinic for uninsured sex workers.
Cecilia’s legacy is not just in the material conditions she changed for sex workers, immigrants, or trans people in New York. She raised a generation of queer and trans organizers who are continuing her work, from the streets of Queens to the halls of power in Albany and Washington, DC. For many, Cecilia was a mother, a title she tentatively grew into. For others, she was a role model, an icon, a friendly face at legislative meetings, someone to call when things were going well or when they really weren’t. In my fellow Decrim NY organizers, I see glimmers of Cecilia—when they crack a joke to break the tension, wade into difficult conversations with peers or legislators, or hustle to make sure everyone is fed and gets home safely. That someone so vivacious, so full of life is gone is inconceivable. But she left behind a dream and an entire community of people trained up to make it reality. When we gather together now, her name is always uplifted in conversation -- and sometimes in chants. It rattles through our hearts and our bones: Cecilia was here. Cecilia was here. Cecilia was here.